A Book and Blog about Life

Search For Contentment; and the Circularity of Life

Of all the things I’ve learned in this life, this the most important of all:

If we cannot be content having nothing, then we will never be content having everything. If we cannot be content, then we can never know happiness.

Nothing is more true than this statement. Nothing. Except that I had to learn this in reverse.

What I had been seeking before were temporary fillers of happiness – things like love, family, successful career, money, things, travel, parties, and women. They ultimately collapsed, and along with them, my happiness.

Raping-n-Pillaging and Morality

I think my recent blog about “People are Crazy” wasn’t so popular. People never like being told they’re literally crazy, or immoral, or stupidly brainwashed. People also don’t like to stray too far from their comfort zone. Which means people also don’t like to think too much, especially out of the box.

But I’d like to remind everyone that “thinking out of the box” is the essence of real intelligence. Computers and artificial machines can do inside the box thinking for us – literally and figuratively. It’s clinical work; boring. Real intellect, genius, is all about creativity of thought.

Real intellect is all about creativity, not memory, not “logic”.

But, really, people are all crazy. This doesn’t require too much actual thought to deduce; not much creativity required to come to this objective conclusion. So, for anyone to be calling me crazy or insane, well, the pot is blacker than the kettle.

I was thinking the other day, if Jesus, or some religious or philosophical giant of history were alive today, what would people think. And I quickly concluded, they would unambiguously label them as completely nuts; funny farm material. Jesus would be labeled as “deranged”, “mental”, a “religious cult leader”, “extremist”, “dangerous thinker” and so on. Oh, our lovely media would have a field day with Jesus, sitting on their high and mighty electronic soap box of soft power. And the religious institutions and leaders, the Pope, the Clergy, the Imams, the Monks, the Pastors and Priests, they would all be saying things like, “How blasphemous” that he claims to be “The God. There is only one true god!” They would still be unable to get past their preconditioned, institutionalized thinking. And of course, the Jews, they would still be saying, “We’re special! WE are God’s chosen people. You can’t be God because we say so! Let’s crucify him!” Although it wouldn’t be a literal crucifixion, merely a literary media crucifixion, since they control media. Somehow, Jewish people have completely lost sight of everything important, completely misunderstanding the term “God’s chosen people”. You are no more God’s chosen people than Muslims are. Get over yourselves, you pathetic egomaniacs.

Even the over two billion Christians alive today would dismiss Jesus as God. And they would surely reject his message. Just as they did two thousand years ago. People won’t stop clinging onto their mountain of possessions and money. Never. God vs Materialism? God gets his ass-whooped every single time in our society.

Nope, the world would outright reject Jesus if he we were alive today. Of course, his name wouldn’t be “Jesus”, lest we make it too obvious. LOL.

In fact, if the play unfolded just as it did two millennium ago, it probably would unfold nearly exactly the same. The homeless and broken people, those who have little or nothing to lose, would be the only ones who would forsake everything to follow His message of hope. Everyone else would cling onto their gods of Silver and Gold. Still. Guaranteed.

My, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I was thinking about our ancestors and morality today as well. I thought about how moral thinking has differed and changed from culture to culture, era to era.

People thought human sacrifice was noble; that virgin girls had more than one useful purpose (other than waiting to soothe the suicide bombers in heaven, along with her 69 other sisters, I mean). People thought that slavery was ok – not just in America a couple hundred years ago, but since the beginning of time! In fact, practically every race has been enslaved at some point. We all have slave ancestors. So, Black people, get over yourselves. You’re not the only “special” descendants of slaves. I won’t whine about being slaves to Chinese emperors, if you stop whining about your predicament from a hundred years ago. People used to think killing the weak and letting the elderly go away and die alone was noble – especially many Eskimos and Indians. It was the only way for society to function and survive.

Due to technological progress, people think today that killing an unborn baby is perfectly fine. Even if the baby can survive on its own outside the woman’s body. At least half the population clings onto this mantra, “My Body, My Choice!” I can still hear those liberal democratic voices ringing in the background. Chills up my spine. If the baby is viable, in the last 3-5 months of the pregnancy, it is NOBODY’S choice whether we can kill or not. How anyone can think otherwise…history and God will judge us.

People used to think that Raping and Pillaging was a right, bestowed upon to the conquerors over the conquered. I promise you virtually every single one of us has ancestors who were rapists and pillagers.

Power ruled back in the day. The strong preying on the weak. It still does. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The only difference now is that we don’t rape as much these days, just more pillage, plunder…seeking profits. I suppose we can say we’re 50% more moral today! Less raping, more plundering! Wow! This could be an awesome body wash or shampoo slogan! “Cleanse with our body wash and get 50% moral – FREE!” (I swear people never get my jokes; it’s a sarcastic pun, a poke in the eye at today’s consumerism and materialism.)

Only the “thinkers” and philosophers understood true morality didn’t depend on society or cultural thinking. And that very few throughout history have truly understood the meaning of morality. Jesus understood it better than anyone, ever.

The Dead Feline

Today, as I walked toward the library, I came upon a dead cat laying at the bottom of the sidewalk ledge, nestled against the concrete, laying still, eyes open. It was dead.

The cat looked fairly healthy, with a fur that looked like an old man’s thick beard, with shades of silver and black streaks, some off-white. It hadn’t been hit by a car, as far as I could tell. It was plump and the fur coat was relatively clean and shiny. As I leaned down to look at it closer, to see if it was injured and needed help, it lay motionless, the eyes staring without focus. It was clearly dead. It made me a little sad.

I suppose our lives are a bit like this feline. One moment, we’re playing, enjoying our lives, the next, everything stops. We become cold. Dead. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe today. Maybe next year. Maybe a hundred years from now. Time is meaningless when the outcome is certain.

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

Have you ever thought about what a circle is? Other than a simple and beautiful geometric shape? Or in relation to Pi?

Our universe, our world, our lives, are like circles.

Unlike common misconception, a circle has nothing to do with time; something can be perfectly eternal, circular, and still have a beginning. The only requirement of a circle is that it has no end.

Like I said, we are like circles.

I spent days thinking and starting to write about this concept of time, not in terms of our lives, but in terms of science and understanding our universe. Perhaps I will publish it one day, but I just don’t think people are ready for such radical thinking; nor are they capable of understanding the implications.

I don’t believe in time. It is an imaginary concept, derived for humans to comprehend the universe in relation to ourselves, not how the universe itself is constructed or actually works. This isn’t my opinion, but I believe can be scientifically proven.

I can already hear the laughs of those snickering. Small minds. I’m perfectly serious, time is not real. It only seems real to us, because we have both a beginning and a physical ending, and all of human understanding is constructed around this view, and parsed into small intervals that define these book-ends. We are incapable, unwilling, to even entertain the idea of something radically different.

If you want to understand God, our universe, even ourselves, we have to begin to think in this context: Time is not the fourth dimension, spirituality is – a non-physical reality. And just as when time was erroneously conceived to be the 4th dimension, the 4th dimension envelops the 3 physical dimensions of our physical reality. It’s difficult to imagine or picture.

To all of those who would say, with such great conviction usually, I only believe in what we can see, touch and prove, I have one message:

Only the simplest thinkers and minds confine themselves in this manner. If we always only believed in what we can see or touch or prove, we would still be living in the stone ages.

Science is nothing magical, unable to answer all the mysteries of life and our universe – unlike how some lunatics believe. It is the most shockingly naive belief anyone can cling onto – even if we forget about about God or anything spiritual.

There are only two truths to a circle: The more things change, the more they stay the same; and although change is constant, it is always still the same. And there is no end.